Dress My Face In Stone
by sodoto
Summary: Clex. Clark breaks off his friendship with everyone in Smallville, and jets off to Gotham with Bruce Wayne to learn how to control his powers… and maybe learn about controlling his emotions, too.
1. Chapter 1

**Dress My Face In Stone**

**Disclaimer: Smallville does not belong to me. Millar & Gough don't belong to me, despite how much I want them to live in my cupboard. sigh Lex's pants also do not belong to me. Pooh.**

**Summary: Clex. Clark breaks off his friendship with everyone in Smallville, and jets off to ****Gotham**** with Bruce Wayne to learn how to control his powers… and maybe learn about controlling his emotions, too.**

**Takes place in a sort of AU where in ****Clark****'s Big Bad Red!Kryptonite summer, Bruce Wayne saved him, and ****Clark**** sort of did too. You'll learn more in following chapters ;)

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**Chapter One - Leaving

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And his head is down, and his hands are sprawled against the wall, cold gravel digging into his palms, but he doesn't care. Not now, not like this.

"I can't," he says, the words sounding weak and pathetic even to his own ears. He can picture their expressions, changing, slanting, disbelieving, confused. "I can't."

He turns, slumps against the coldness, head down, staring at his worn trainers. There, that was a good idea. He can study his old shoes. The ends are grey when new they were white, so bright Pete joked about them for a whole month about how he needed sunglasses to wear them, and one lace is undone, trailing to the floor. The grey of the lace is almost lost on the grey of the floor, and he is almost distracted trying to tell the two apart.

"I can't-" and he's forcing himself to speak again, looking down at the ground through a curtain of dark hair that's fallen down - "I can't be your friend any more. Any of you. I-" _I'm not right for you_ "I'm dangerous. And I- I can't risk that you'd be hurt because of me. By me. I mean-"

The words are hard, but not harder than the content. Staring at his winding lace, at its myriad twists on the stony ground, makes it somehow easier.

"I lie. All the time. You've all mentioned it, and it's true. I do." The wind whistles in his ears like a train, high pitched, deafening. He raises his voice to fight it. "And I have two options, to not lie here, or to not lie elsewhere. And not lying here-- It would--"

"Clark, I really don't understand, we're your _friends_-" Chloe sounds shocked, but stands to reason she would be the first to speak after his outburst, god knows he thought Lex might, but he knows his rich friend is just as shocked as Chloe and Lana and Pete.

"And I can't return that friendship. Never have been able to." He raises his head now, face set, determination swallowing his eyes to wallow them to a steely grey. He can almost see Lex out of the corner of one eyes, whose face is a blank canvas. Pete is slumped, like he expected it, like he can't fight any more. Lana and Chloe are both bristling with confusion, Chloe looking like Clark just told her gravity went the _other _way around and Lana looking almost a ghost of her fairy princess self. "Can't now."

"What's changed? Why now?" Lana's voice held a sharp pleading edge. "We've survived freaks and mutants all the time, Clark. And if you're one- We'll help you through it. Just don't run away from us again. _Clark_"

She speaks his name as if he was something special, and it hurts.

He spits out the last words, even though god be _damned_ it hurt it hurt so much. "If our friendship- what we had- ever meant anything, then you'll- Leave me alone. Leave me and my family alone. You won't-" _bug, press, annoy_ "-investigate why. You just have to accept that I can't lie, and I can't tell the truth, and- if I stay, you're asking me to--" He looks down again. "You're asking me to be someone I'm not."

"Running doesn't help anything, Clark." There, now Lex is speaking, hurt open and tremulous in his voice. His face betrays nothing. "Running away never does."

"I'm not-" Clark says. His voice doesn't sound his own. It sounds almost, ironically, alien. _Kal-El_. "Sometimes it's all you can do." He doesn't look back up, he just runs, runs like the wind, at half-speed, his head down all the way. He can hear Chloe sprinting after him for a minute, flinging curses as she stops on the hill, and he can see in his mind her bright hair flying in the night sky, frustrations and tears on her face, and he shakes the image away. He doesn't superspeed home, just a mocking version of it, and when he does get home, he looks at his mom, stood worried at the door and nods as if to say _I did it_. She's sad, so sad, but he can't take that right now, and he runs to the loft.

And hides under the blankets on his couch, like he used to do when he was small and mom and dad said _no_ to him doing normal kid stuff, and doesn't raise his head until dawn falls.

* * *

"It's so quiet." Martha sank half-heartedly into one of their identical kitchen chairs, perching on the end with the oven gloves dangling off one hand, onto the floor. A sweet, wholesome smell wafted from her buzzing oven, but it seemed almost dull in the sombre atmosphere.

"That's a blessing," Jonathan returned, calloused hands tight around his coffee as he blew on it to cool it down. A thousand aches bristled across his broad shoulders, which he ignored. "No more knocking on the doors, constant phone calls. I never imagined it would ever have to- go that far."

His voice trailed as he spoke, and their eyes locked in muted understanding. They'd understood Clark's determined resolve to break contact with his friends, and worried over it in equal amounts. But Clark believed the balance of having his friends safe - even though _they _couldn't be safe - and being lonely against having friends and putting them in danger didn't quite work out. And if he believed it, they'd support him. It's all they'd ever done, all they could ever do.

"It hurts to see him hurting so much." Martha lowered her gaze to the table, and brought it up again, finding strength in her love's face, knowing he shared her feelings on the matter. "It feels wrong, Jonathan. They should have a place in his life. It's not his fault about the meteors, anything, and he's done more good than not."

"I know, and I feel it, too. But Clark's old enough to make his own decisions, and it's a good plan to make a clean break for Metropolis. Use his abilities in a bigger role, like-" Jonathan shuffled awkwardly on the chair.

"Like Batman, you mean?" Martha's face crumpled into a smile. "You can't even say it."

Jonathan huffed, but not in a bad way. "Damn right, it's strange. Superheroes, sidekicks, spandex..." Martha suppressed a giggle. "It ought to have stayed in the pages of a comic book or science fiction novel or something," he finished uncomfortably.

"Your only son is an alien, Jonathan, we _are_ novelly science fiction." A laugh echoed out into the kitchen that somewhat emptily demanded three people to occupy it. "I'm just relieved he won't have to spend all summer being bombarded by _them_." No need to say who _them _was. They both knew.

"Just the beginning bit," Jonathan said grouchily, sipping nervously at the coffee, holding the mug in his large hands gingerly. "Maybe we ought to send out a bulletin. Attention, Smallville. Clark Kent won't be at home during the summer vacation so don't bother being pesky."

"Ah, that's what I loved most about you, your eloquence." Martha smirked at him. Jonathan scowled, set down the still too-hot coffee, and stepped forwards, scooping Martha up from the chair and into a semi-tilted embrace.

"As opposed to my romantic side, I suppose," he drawled, kissing her, tangling his hands in her hair.

"Oh, as opposed to that," Martha breathily agreed, a smile alighting her beautiful face. Jonathan beamed predatorily, swinging her up into his arms, when the banging at the door interrupted. Martha pulled a small face and hopped down. "Maybe that bulletin isn't such a bad idea, after all."

Jonathan moved to open the door, frowning heavily at the three visitors. Pete wasn't amongst them, had probably come under harsh fire for _not _being so, but Pete understood. Pete knew why he couldn't be friends with Clark any more. After the cave incident and the red meteor rock, Pete was just as scared as they were.

"Clark's not in," Martha said, leaning regretfully against the table, trying not to see the downcast and angry looks in their eyes.

"Hell he isn't," Chloe snapped back, eyes blazing. Lex, calmer, showing his maturity in his physical restraint, held her back with one arm.

"Chloe." Lex's voice was soft in warning as he looked hard at the young reporter, before looking up to the Kents. "We just want to talk to you, Mrs. Kent." He was deliberately appealing to her, knowing Martha would most likely be the easiest to crumble. "We're worried about Clark."

"Look, kids." Jonathan stepped forwards, firmly on the rise between the door and the step, and folded his arms. "Clark doesn't want you anywhere around, and I'd be much obliged if you acquiesced to my son's request. Pester us all you like, you won't get to Clark."

Lana and Chloe slumped a little, the hope on Lana's face dying. Chloe's mouth opened in an 'o' shape, and a thousand platitudes died on the air, silent.

"I'm sorry you were under the impression that that was an option." Lex, his voice smooth, squeezed past Jonathan into the Kent kitchen as if he wasn't even there. Jonathan fell back, bemused by Lex's confidence, and Chloe and Lana took advantage of his shock to slide in after him.

"Now, look here, this is entering without permission-" Jonathan started, to be stopped by Martha's hand, gentle on his own.

"They'll only be a minute," she said, soft, cajoling. "They need closure, Jonathan."

The look on his face told her that this was _so_ not over.

"Say what you have to say and leave," Jonathan managed, gruff and commanding.

"You know he's avoiding us. Asked us to not- to not be his friends any more." Lana's slight form trembled a little, then her eyes hardened and she stilled. Her dark eyes flashed. "He told us that he's dangerous, and he doesn't want to see us hurt. Although he _is _hurting us all, badly I may add, by being so pig ignorant as to think we'd abandon him for _any_ secret he had."

"Lana-"

"Please, let me finish." Lana shut her eyes tight, before opening them again, fire and adrenaline and passion. "He might not be our friend any more. To be honest, it's up to him. But- he can't stop us from- He's still our friend. Our best friend. Nothing he can say or do will ever, ever change that."

Lex and Chloe were nodding heavily in agreement.

"And- we'll always be ready to- to have him back fully again," Chloe said. "Whatever his secret is, we can deal."

"And we can take measures to protect ourselves from any fallout, Mr. Kent, Mrs. Kent." Lex's face was hard. Stone. "Clark says his secret could hurt us, and we trust his judgement. We've all seen him doing crazy stuff, things that can't be believed. Being hit by bullets-" A regretful pause. "Cars..."

"Starting fires when he was nowhere near them," Lana said tightly. "_Saving _us from impossible situations." A tight smile. "_Flying_, for goodness' sake."

"Disappearing. Having good things inexplicably happen around him, impossible good things." Chloe looked down at her entwined hands. "And we understand why he wouldn't tell us, it's just-"

"I really don't see what you're accusing him of, but it's not true." Martha stepped forwards, blue eyes warm and pleading. "Clark's saved all your lives, because he's a good, honest, warm person. If he says he is avoiding you to prevent you from being hurt, then-- I have no idea why it's necessary, but if he believes it, I believe it. And so should you."

"Clark said lying has torn him apart," Lex said, his eyes and voice like flint. "I just hope it doesn't do the same for your family." He turned on his heels, strode out of the small room, dark coat swirling like a cape around his feet. Chloe and Lana just held their gazes for a long, agreeing second before following him out. The screech of a car told them they'd gone.

Martha fell back into Jonathan's arms as they stared back at the empty yard, quiet with worry.

* * *

It still seemed to take the same amount of time.

Clark could feel where the veins traced up now, but it didn't stop it hurting just as badly. If anything, the more times he did it, the more it hurt, because it was _skin_, going up and down and up and down, and his didn't really do that all that often. He kept the lid open as long as he could, a good twelve seconds, before kicking it shut and falling to his knees. Clenching his eyes shut, he knelt with his forehead falling against the cold lead surface of the box containing the fragment of green Kryptonite.

"Jesus, Clark!"

There were voices he knew, recognised, and footfalls. He despised himself violently for a few more seconds before scrambling around, one leg hunched to his chest the other sprawled in the direction of the steps, where they were standing.

"What the hell are you doing?" Lex was hurrying forwards, eyes narrowed, disbelief etched on his already immortalized face. "Drugs? I thought you were smarter than that, Clark."

"'s not-" Clark began, then froze. He slid easily to his feet, with more grace than he'd ever shown in the presence of Lana Lang. Chloe and Lana noticed, their faces dry with fear and worry. "You shouldn't be here," he said, quiet.

Lex shot an angry look at the lead container on Clark's desk. "So you can sit here and hide and destroy yourself? Clark, jeez-" And Lex swore violently, slamming his fist into one of the wooden banisters.

"Get the hell out of here," Clark growled out, feeling his strength slowly return, curling in his stomach like a small rush. "Or I'll call the police. Trespassing."

"And I'll call the police," Lex returned, just as viciously. "Drug possession is illegal, Clark."

"They'll find no drugs," Clark said humourlessly, his eyes meeting Lex's hollowly. "Nor will they find traces of drugs if they do a drug test."

"Then what-" Lex started.

"It's none of your business," Clark said softly. "Leave me be."

"Leave you to hide, you mean," Lana said, her voice ringing out accusingly.

"Hide, mope, whinge, kill myself- Gee, there's a million options. Only one thing in cement, though. You. Leaving now."

"Clark-" Lex stepped forwards, but then, fast-- too fast-- Clark was there, his hand abruptly on Lex's throat. Lex spluttered, wriggled in Clark's grasp, choked as his feet started to slowly leave the floor.

"Clark, no!"

There was a dull gleam in Clark's eyes as he dropped Lex, pushing him backwards to Chloe and Lana who staggered, fell against the wooden supports of the stairs, caught him and looked up in horror.

"Leave me the fuck alone," Clark said. "Stay the fuck out of my life."

Lex struggled upright in the girls' grasp, his normally placid countenance fiery and harsh, his voice thick. Clark's handprint was red against the pallid white of his skin. "With pleasure," he snarled, shoving Chloe and Lana away and stalking out of the barn.

"Maybe it is a good idea," Chloe added, imperiously turning and following Lex. Lana looked pleadingly at Clark, her elfin face creased with worry, but now tinged with a real fear of Clark's strength.

"I really don't know who you are any more," she whispered, helpless.

"Me neither," Clark admitted, his voice just as light. Her throat constricted, her eyes burned. She turned, and furiously walked away, her head forwards. Disbelief made her steps falter, and when she looked back, Clark was hunched down. Hiding again. Arms wrapped around his knees like he was protecting himself from the whole wide world.

She stopped, stilled in the middle of the open space. Straw carpeted her feet. She raised her chin, defiant now. "Pete's given up on you. Lex will probably back off now. Chloe's damn scared and I don't blame her. But I know you, Clark. Under all the masks you put up, the mystery you hide behind. And I won't give up. _Hell_ will have to be raised on earth for me to give up, 'cause you've never given up on me. I'd be a damn _shit_ of a human being to do the same to you."

Lana saw his back tense, relax, and tense again. His head raised, and he twisted to look at her through a curtain of heavy, black hair. "'m sorry," he admitted, his voice cracking. With hope, she stepped forward, but he shook his head. "I'm so sorry, but this is the way it has to be."

"For now, maybe," she admitted. "But I'll be waiting. We all will. You're too important to us, Clark."

"I-" He opened his mouth as if to say something, and snapped it, stubbornly silent. He turned back to his hunched position. Lana stared at his still back for a long minute before leaving the barn.

* * *

"Are you sure you want to do this, Clark?" Jonathan looked at his son, who somehow seemed so small now, clutching a large bag of clothes, paler now the sun was hidden behind a large swarm of clouds. Early summer, and still no real hot weather. An Indian summer was well on its way to becoming a reality. Martha would be pleased, exporting late strawberries was good money.

"I'm sure, dad." Clark smiled at him briefly, looking at the large car. "Mr. Wayne-- helped me out of the whole heap of trouble I got myself into in Metropolis, and- he _knows_. He can help me- control. Control my own strength."

Jonathan flickered a distrustful look at the large, brooding businessman.

"Clark is a gifted young man," Mr. Wayne soothed. "And there are those who would abuse his gifts. I am not one of them. I owe him my life, no doubt about it, and in return maybe I can help him find a little of the peace he needs after this eventful year."

"Being away from Smallville will do him good, Jonathan," Martha said, although it sounded more like it was to convince herself than him. "And he'll call."

"Every day, mom, I promise," Clark said, bending down and giving them both an impromptu hug and kiss on the cheek. "After everything--" He paused. He didn't need to fill in the gaps. "After Metropolis, not much has made sense to me, except for the need to control what I am, what I can do. I don't want to hurt anyone any more."

There were other words, of course, in the goodbyes. More hugs, kisses, reprimands, suggestions, orders, but they seemed to breeze by Clark and then he was in the car, and the landscape was blurring by their windows.

"You okay, kid?"

Clark scrunched his nose up, and looked across at Bruce's profile. His hard, chiseled face was stern, but he suspected he could see the hint of a grin playing on Bruce's lips.

"Yeah. I- thanks for this, Bruce."

Bruce's eyes smiled. "No problem. You've kept my secret for a year-"

"-and vice versa," Clark instantly butted in. "I think _alien teenager_ is more controversial than _billionaire caped crusader_."

"And you saved my life," Bruce said. "Don't even contradict that I saved yours, because you saved mine _twice_."

"We keeping score?" Clark asked, rolling his eyes to the ceiling of the car and settling them on the bushes and fields that scraped by the window. He felt an ache of regret when Lex's mansion sped through the blur and disappeared, which didn't quite go away. Lex didn't deserve what Clark had done to him. None of them did.

"I-" Clark started, but didn't get to finish his sentence as a blur of silver glinting ahead caught his attention, and Bruce's too. The large billionaire slammed on the breaks, executing a neat stop an inch away from the car that had blurred onto the road. Clark's stomach fell. He knew that car, and its single occupant.

Bruce growled. It came from the back of his throat. Clark looked at him, a little fearful.

"Let me handle this, Kal-El," Bruce said smoothly, and Clark started in protest, to say it wasn't his name, and even that fell silent in his throat. Clark wished he could sink further into his seat, but it wasn't possible, so instead Clark trained his superhearing on the conversation two of the richest people in the world were having barely feet away from him.

* * *

"Imagine my surprise when I find out that you're in town," Lex is saying. Bruce leans, one large hand on the bonnet of his car, and assumes a bored expression. "And visiting the Kent farm. I had no idea they were... acquaintances."

Bruce sees Lex flicker a look at his car, and do a double take, and knows he's seen Clark Kent huddled in the car. He doesn't look back himself, not wanting to incense Lex further, but can imagine the embarrassment the boy is feeling.

"You aren't expected to know everything in the world, Lex," Bruce says softly, almost purring. He knows his laidback attitude annoys Lex. "Although I suppose your father thinks otherwise."

"This isn't about my father," Lex snaps, letting Bruce know he's hit Lex's sorest nerve, "this is about Clark Kent."

Bruce laughs out loud, flashing pearly white teeth at Lex. "The boy? What, am I playing with your fucktoy? I had no idea... Really. He's such a good lay, I should have guessed you'd had something to do with his training."

Bruce watches Lex's face shift through several shades of pale. He's shocked Lex _and_ pushed at a raw nerve. Not a bad day's work, really.

"He's not- I di-" Lex's moment of fluster is brief. "Clark and I are friends. A Luthor friendship is nothing to be toyed with, or messed with, or broken." He levels Bruce with a hard-edged stare, with a passionate glint to his silver-ash eyes, and Bruce is almost surprised by the emotion, only nothing much shocks him nowadays. "If you hurt him, I swear I'll find you and hurt you so much you'll wish you were dead."

And Lex swirls away in a flurry of expensive cloth to his car, and speeds away without looking at Clark again. Bruce laughs out loud, pleased, and goes back into the car to find Clark looking at him with an unreadable expression. Right, superhearing. "You heard," Bruce says out loud.

Clark nods, his face a little paler than it was.

"I'm sorry," Bruce says, although he's not too sure he is, "I completely cheapened you out there, and to your friend too-"

"-he's not a friend," Clark says, fast. Too fast. "And considering what I was _doing_ in Metropolis when you rescued me." A wry grin crosses his face. "It's good Lex has heard what I'm capable of. Maybe then he'll leave me alone," Clark finishes, his voice having fallen in a diminuendo to a whisper. A plea.

"Still. That had to have been hard for you. I'm sorry," Bruce says, gunning the engine and starting back on the road again, wondering why he feels the need to apologise. Clark looks so fragile, and even though Bruce knows it's not really possible, he looks on the edge of breaking.

"'s fine," Clark mutters, his pale cheeks darkening again.

"Sleep, Kal-El," Bruce instructs, noting Clark's muted surprise in one of the mirrors. "Gotham is a fair distance away."

Clark frowns, as if trying to calculate something. "About how far?"

Bruce looks at the dials on his car for confirmation. "Couple hundred miles."

"Could run that in twenty minutes," Clark says.

Bruce feels his eyebrows rise despite himself. "With me, and the car?"

"We could try," Clark says, a look of mischief on his face.

Chuckling, Bruce keeps hold of the steering wheel. "How about you sleep now, I drive, and we keep you from being picked up by NATO."

Clark flickers an easy middle fingered gesture at him, and sleeps. If he dreams of Chloe's angry face, and Lana throwing kryptonite at him, and Lex dying under his own fingers, he will forget it upon waking.

------

**To be continued**


	2. Chapter 2

**Dress My Face In Stone**

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**A/N: Really sorry for the delay with this. I sort of gave up on it. Well, I totally did. I had this chapter written years ago *whistles innocently* and then used part of it for another fic in another account, and then deleted that in a fit of annoyance, and then realised the idea just wasn't going to leave me alone until it's all out.

And now real life has impacted, but I'm going to slowly try and finish all my unfinished stuff. So bear with me, there will be an end, but it might take another year, because I'm super busy.

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**(ii)**

Lex Luthor liked to think that he was an observant kind of fellow, but never in his years of carefully watching his father had he fully comprehended how long his sire had sat behind a desk on the phone. Arching his shoulders and shifting the handset to his other hand, Lex looked longingly over at the sofa and the flickering firelight, longing to curl up with a damn good book and ignore the blathering fool on the end of the phone line.

"Look, Dr. Carpathian. It's three am in the morning. I'm sure your reports can wait one more day, and I doubt your wife can."

Hearing the tinny shriek from the other end of the line, Lex twisted his hand, hitting disconnect with a sigh of relief. The word _wife _raised a twisting feeling in his stomach for a second, and he let it go, feeling the throb of the scar on his back caused by the crash with the same internal anguish as he had the last three hundred and twenty-four days.

"That was a little melodramatic even for you, Mr. Luthor."

The smooth tones floating crisply through the dusk-soaked office made Lex jerk up quickly, distrust and fear darkening his eyes. Surreptitiously his hand slid under the desk, fingering the comforting edges of the security button.

"And sneaking up into my office uninvited isn't?" Lex stood up fluidly, keeping one hand on the edge of the desk after pressing the button, knowing his gun was nearby. He looked at the figure standing there. However much he wouldn't normally turn down a pretty girl in his office, he was damned tired and pretty damned crotchety. In his experience these things didn't translate to anything resembling 'great'. She was pretty, probably a doctor by the way her dark hair was swept away from her face, and the harsh hairstyle that normally made most women look unflattering seemed to soften her face.

Dark hair, pretty and a doctor. Instantaneous distrust for them from Lex these days.

Nervous brown eyes looked up from him above slightly pouting crimson lips, a nicely-cut mauve suede suit that she managed to pull off, tan panty hose and black high heels. She had a brown folder and a small black box tucked under her arm that she was clutching tightly, as if her life or sanity depended on it. "I've called security by the way."

The woman shrugged. "They had to let me in." She reached into one perfectly tailored pocket and brought out a badge. Lex managed to catch the FBI logo on it before she put it back carefully into her pocket.

"Nice fake," Lex lied, assuming his poker face. "You've gone to extremely great trouble to get here, Ms…"

"Sandy. Dr. Sandy Evans."

"A doctor?" Lex pretended to look surprised. "I'll give you two minutes before I have security come in and escort you out, Doctor."

A small frown appeared on her pretty face, and Lex winced inwardly. His dislike of doctors, albeit irrational, had continued since Helen's betrayal. Especially the pretty, determined ones. They were the ones you couldn't trust.

"Well, then," Sandy said easily, as if he hadn't fazed her at all. "I'm here about some readings my research company picked up a few months ago. We're researching adverse effects of the meteor shower thirteen years ago. You may have heard of us."

Of course Lex had, and Lex knew Sandy knew he knew. "Yes, of course. Dalton labs. I'd heard your research wasn't going well."

Sandy shifted edgily, her dark eyes flickering uneasily around Lex's office. "I was in Smallville the time of the meteor strike, and we have evidence of… an allergic reaction that has affected five people so far. Now, two years ago there was a spike of the energy that we now know is the… signature spike. It seems to come up in those who are also allergic. We tracked down the signal, to the day and time, and place, and have finally come up with the people present at that time. You, and a Mr. Clark Kent." She looked amused. "A car accident, or so I'm told."

Lex stared at her, Clark's name swimming in his head for a moment, causing that rush in his belly that part of the Kent mystery might come clear, then it all lurched away, and he felt sick. "That sounds rather vague on your part, Dr. Evans. I presume you have the evidence to back it up, and perhaps a more technical explanation too."

Sandy flushed. "Sorry. Mr. Luthor. I'm used to explaining myself to people of less… intellect than yourself." She stepped forwards delicately, as if he were a lion in the cage, and slid forwards the brown folder. "Have your scientists look over it if you like."

Lex nodded. "So. Why are you here? Why didn't you just send it to me?"

"Two reasons. One - I need you to take me seriously, take this seriously. Secondly - I'd like to test you. If you are not the infected one, I'll have to assume Mr. Kent is."

Lex made a sound in the back of his throat. "Sure. What do you need me to do?"

Sandy placed the box on his desk and stepped back to the middle of the room. Lex watched her progress with one raised eyebrow, and was relieved when he saw Antoine, his main security man, shuffling in the dark recesses of the room. "Open the left side of the box and touch the fragment of meteor within. I'd do it myself, but as a sufferer of this malady myself…"

She left it hanging. Feeling as if he was about to open a Jack-in-the-Box and have a grotesquely painted clown face spring up and leer at him, Lex gingerly opened the left compartment of the box and stretched out a hand to touch the meteor fragment. As usual, when his fingers brushed the smooth green crystalline rock, nothing happened. His skin reflected the incandescent green, and he flickered a glance up to Sandy. The petite doctor was looking a little frightened, and Lex recognised the expression. It was an expression the nine-year-old Lex wore around bees and wasps. Having a potentially devastating reaction to their stings, he'd been mortally afraid of them for years, and unwittingly he felt sympathy for Sandy Evans.

"Now close that side and open the right hand side," Sandy directed, now looking a little less sure of herself as she gripped the side of one of Lex's leather settees.

Lex nodded and opened the right, glancing at the red meteor fragment in surprise. "You managed to salvage some of the red meteor rock?"

Sandy nodded and stepped forwards. Was it Lex's imagination or did she suddenly look a bit more confident? Snapping the box shut, Lex looked at her questioningly, fighting the urge to yawn.

"Yes. We have some other samples. I'd be willing to send some over, for a small price of course."

"Of course," Lex agreed blithely.

"Research is expensive work after all." She looked faintly disappointed that he wasn't allergic to the meteor rocks.

"I don't suppose you know the side-effects of the meteor rocks on those affected?"

Sandy nodded. "The green seems to cause physical pain. The red… Well…" She winced. "It has a similar effect to the Nicodemus flowers that took over Smallville twenty months ago. Makes you lose all inhibitions."

Lex just about managed to restrain the gasp, but knew from Sandy's amused quirky smile that his slightly constipated expression must have given him away.

"Does that explain much?" Sandy asked, her head tilted on one side.

Lex nodded slowly. "You could say that."

"Thank you for your time," Sandy said, with a brief semi-curtsy. Lex realised she must have been in a thousand of these meetings – and knew when the rich and bored were going to refuse to elaborate on some points, and he briefly admired her observational skills. Knowing when to cut and run was extremely helpful in his business.

"I suppose you're going to go find Mr. Kent," Lex said smoothly, almost disinterestedly, as he fingered the brown folder she'd left on his desk. Flicking through the graphs and results, he was surprised, and had to fight to let it show.

"Yes," Sandy said, then clocked Lex's expression. "Why?"

"He's out of town at the minute," Lex said. "A business trip to Gotham City with Bruce Wayne."

He watched Sandy for her reaction, and was relieved to see her surprised. If she had known Clark was out of Smallville, he would have kept his suspicious level on high as she must have had some ulterior motive. But her surprise relieved him somewhat. Not enough for him to trust her too much, though.

"So unless you have a fake Rich Billionaires Club membership card," Lex said, casually, "then I suppose I'll have to accompany you there."

And despite his distrust of her because of her profession, her look of open-mouthed-socked-in-the-gut surprise mellowed his qualms of too much subterfuge on her part. _But if she does have an ulterior motive for searching out Clark,_ Lex thought, while smiling cat-like at Sandy, _you're hardly one to talk._

"We'll leave tomorrow at eleven o' clock sharp," Lex said, then fell silent, dismissing her with his eyes. He watched as she left, his expression unreadable.

-----

In his dreams, he's on the bike again. Adrenaline surges through his veins, thrilling up and down his body in waves that sweep him away to the horizon and back again. Feeling the effects of red Kryptonite, Clark is able to feel it take hold of his body for a little while, and after that he doesn't care. He lets his foot press down hard on the gas, speeding away along the route at nearly one-fifty k, the wind ruffling his hair in the daredevil style of motorbike owners who rode without a helmet.

Smallville swims away from him in the background, becoming a tiny dot on the horizon, and he drives and drives until the petrol in his tank runs out. He refills and runs from a tiny gas station, not paying, probably ruining the owner for the month, but at this time he doesn't give a damn, it's a dream, isn't it? And he's a murderer, in all but the actual act of striking his to-be-sibling, and with the rush of the Kryptonite it all seemed somehow clearer.

Destroying the ship couldn't destroy all the danger to Earth. He has to destroy all of the Kryptonian influence. Kryptonite, any evidence of the language, and the last of his kind.

The last son.

Himself.

The red Kryptonite obviously enhanced all destructive feelings as he drives along. Clark recalls in this dream the powerful urge to end it all, end it all wherever he can. Nothing can kill him, but maybe falling to the bottom of the ocean would be enough.

With that in mind, he's ditching the bike and running. Running faster and faster, Clark hits the coastline faster than he would have by road. The unnatural surges of hormones pushes his talent further, he's running so fast it was almost like flying down the road.

He wants to jump, wants to fly down to the bottom of the ocean to stay as long as possible before eternity claims him, the darkness swallowing the monster he'd been born to become, had he not seen the aeroplane pitching towards the sea.

Something inside him kicks in, suicidal instincts or whatever, the instinct to do something heroic, something big, something he can exploit afterwards. In his dream, he copies exactly what he did in person – swam out to the plane, and catching the single figure that tumbled out of it a few metres from the air before the plane pitched into the water and blew up.

Even in the dream world, Clark can still feel the fire scorch along his face.

Except, now the figure is not the thankful but prone form of a terrified businessman, but a tumble of red hair, a small innocent face, dark eyes blinking up at him, wide. _Small_. A baby.

_You killed me_, it says, _you killed me_. Its mouth opens wide, a toothless gaping hole into eternity, and starts to scream.

-----

Biting down hard on his pillow, Clark managed to wake up without letting loose the painful yell that writhed in his chest, clawing to get loose. He'd caused enough disturbances in the household already last summer to want to bring Alfred to his room.

Saving Lex out there, in the middle of nowhere, had brought Clark out of his Red Kryptonite stupor. His hero complex, as Lex so eloquently tagged it as, worked even when his inhibitions were stupendously clouded. The surge of pure adrenaline had given him just that small amount of clarity to save his friend.

But the adrenaline had not lasted long enough. He'd saved Lex, but the Red Kryptonite had so much hold on him that he hadn't saved Lex in time – Lex had been injured. And Clark had just dumped him off at the house of a surprised suburban housewife, and swanned off for Metropolis.

The adrenaline-break in the influence of the Red Kryptonite had done something to him, though. It didn't work in the same way any more. So he'd turned to other ways to get the buzz. Sex, first, had sort of worked, but as it turned out, danger was the real way that Clark ticked.

And when he was completely off the Red Kryptonite – Bruce's fault, of course – he realised that none of that had left him. Danger was still how he ticked.

Leaving him, effectively, an addict.

_Although they don't exactly do group meetings for Dangerholics Anonymous,_ he thought wryly, stretching lithely, even though he wore little, and Bruce's closed-circuit television camera whirred as it focussed on him. Clark hadn't needed the Red Kryptonite so much after a while, because doing what he'd been doing… well, if Clark had to try and explain it to his parents (and _oh_ how much he didn't want to have to do that) he'd probably explain it by just saying he'd lost a couple of inhibitions in his last summer vacation.

Like nudity. And especially public nudity. And if there was a sexual inhibition he still possessed, Clark decided he wanted to be informed of it.

Clark sighed, and decided to go back to sleep.

-----

"Master Bruce would like to see you now, young Master Kent," a voice comes from the doorway, startling Clark into being awake. He stretches languidly, and smiles at Alfred, who throws him some pants, a stiff but sort of approving smile, and then taps his watch. "He says he'll see you in the training room in fifteen seconds."

Clark arches a surprised eyebrow, sleepily unfolds the pants, and then realises Alfred said seconds.

"Seconds?" Clark yawns in a gasp.

"Seven of them left, sir," Alfred says, good-naturedly standing to one side as Clark tornadoes past him into the training room, deep in the building, a good distance away from Clark's room. Clark literally skids to a halt and grins goofily at Bruce, who shakes his head.

"To think I almost picked you up to shake off the rumours of me liking only teenage boys," Bruce says, rolling his eyes. Clark smiles, gnat-like, and then looks around. The place amazes him. Large, but simple; with a variety of apparatus on the ground and up high to leap around, jump on, swing from, anything. Clark thinks of a few interesting possibilities with some of the more interestingly shaped apparatus, especially on one cactus shaped one, and then he gets a mental flash of pale skin and lavender material and shakes it away.

Clark knew a long time ago he only got a crush on Lex because Lex is the most dangerous person he knows, and even if Lex did- if maybe the constant parade of murderous wives was just a show- well, if Lex ever responded like Clark used to think he might- Clark knows it wouldn't be fair. He would just be with Lex for the danger of it, not for the love of him. Clark knows enough about wrong and right by now to understand that.

"You're thinking too much," Bruce says, and lunges. Clark reacts instinctively, rolling to the side and hiding behind a tall climbing thing. The large katana that Bruce was wielding clangs harmlessly off the floor. "And thinking like a human."

"There's a first time for everything," Clark replies glibly.

"Bad cliché – after the lesson, I want a hundred lines – 'I must not speak so boringly'."

Clark knows from years of school the one thing you should never do was provoke a teacher during the first lesson in the morning. "You know that'll take me three seconds," he says. Clarks knows it, yes, but Clark doesn't always put what he knows into practise.

"A hundred lines carved in marble, then," Bruce says. "Close your eyes."

"Ah, the Bat-Man's leather fetish has its roots in a sexual kink after all," Clark says, earning him a narrowed glance before he closes his eyes. He tenses, waiting for Bruce to hit him while he's blind, and then remembers oh yeah he's not blind after all. He squints, setting off his x-ray vision, but Bruce isn't prowling around him attempting to hit him – he's putting a blindfold on Clark, like that would really…

Clark's x-ray vision splutters and folds like a television image disappears when you hit the power off button. Disorientated, it takes him a while to realise – there's kryptonite in the blindfold. Not enough to make him too sick and not enough to make him _weak_, just enough to make him blind in both senses – must be a tiny amount that normally wouldn't do much at all.

Clark flexes and discovers the kryptonite only really affects his sight and hearing and his sight and hearing related powers. So he stops still and listens – even though his super hearing is gone, he still has regular hearing, and it's all that saves him as Bruce yanks the katana out of the floor and swings it at Clark. He dodges just in time, hearing the whistle, and the clang as the blade hits another piece of apparatus.

The battle begins in earnest and ends only when Clark gets a stitch, so he takes off the blindfold to see the katana in pieces on the floor, and Bruce holding his hands between his knees.

"I didn't get out of the way fast enough, did I?" Clark says.

Bruce whistles between his teeth, and Alfred hurries over with a hypodermic needle full of something or other and quickly and proficiently stabs Bruce with it.

"And that katana was worth a lot, wasn't it?" Clark follows up with.

The whistling gets lower.

"Ah," Clark says in conclusion.

-----

**To be continued**


End file.
